A brief look at who EPG and Lexington will face

Wednesday

May 22, 2013 at 1:32 AMMay 22, 2013 at 1:34 AM

Baseball sectional

Erich Murphy

Here is a quick look at the Lexington and El Paso-Gridley sectional matchups. Lexington is scheduled to face Ridgewood in a Class 1A sectional baseball game at Illinois Wesleyan’s Horenberger Field. The first pitch is set for 4 p.m. The Minutemen earned a spot in the sectional with a 5-1 win over Roanoke-Benson behind the pitching of Nate Jacobs. Ridgewood defeated ROWVA 2-1 at Monmouth. The Spartans’ program is a co-op between AlWood and Cambridge. According to the Galesburg Register-Mail, the team plays “small ball” and relies on pitching. Ridgewood was the top seed at the United Regional. Also making the field at IWU are Galva and Illini Bluffs. The Galva Wildcats got past Stark County 10-0 at the Midland Regional. Galva was the top seed. Illini Bluffs defeated Delavan 6-0. Delavan was the top seed at its own regional. Lexington was the third seed at home. The winner of the IWU Sectional moves on to the Illinois Supersectional at Champaign opposite the winner of the LeRoy Sectional. In Class 2A, El Paso-Gridley gets Chicago Christian, a parochial school in Palos Heights, at Seneca. The Knights were the top seed at their own regional and had little problem in going through the smaller public league schools from the city of Chicago by posting wins of 23-0 and 12-1. Chicago Christian appears to have a solid offense with good pitching — key ingredients to winning in the postseason. Also coming to Seneca will be St. Bede and Beecher. St. Bede was the top seed at Ottawa Marquette Regional and defeated Marquette 2-1 in the final. Beecher has a record under .500 and upset No. 2 Bishop McNamara in the semifinals and top-seeded Watseka 5-0 in the title game of the Momence Regional. The winner of this sectional goes to the Benedictine Supersectional to face the Benedictine Sectional winner.